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Monthly Archives: October 2009

This Land is Mine (1943, USA) – I love the idea of setting a war movie in a generic European country, in a generic occupied city with heroes and cowards, quislings and saboteurs. It gives it the character of a fable, and allows it to take unrealistic shortcuts in order to make a statement that is true on a deeper level – about what it means to live as a free people. Watched it all.

Hitler’s Madman (1943, USA) – The worst “life in occupied Europe” movie so far. Watched: 8 minutes, then fast forwarded to the end, where a village is massacred. The Nazis here are ridiculous, and yet this movie comes closer than many realistic war movies in capturing the scale of the Nazi atrocities.

Action in the North Atlantic (1943, USA) – Macho war drama about the brave men who sail the North Atlantic, men who believe in God, Roosevelt and the Brooklyn Dodgers – in that order. This is a real action movie, with explosions, narrow escapes, and sniggering Nazi schweinhunds. Watched: 29 minutes.

This is the Army (1943, USA) – There’s one foolproof way for a movie to piss me off, and that is to open with an 8 minute overture! Watched: 10 minutes longer than that, then fast forwarded through the rest: It’s two hours of soldiers singing and dancing. You know, I don’t think this is army.

Vredens dag (1943, Denmark) – Witchcraft and adulterous lust among 17th century protestants. Perfect. I love the intro: The shadow of a cross across the words of a hymn about eternal damnation. Watched it all.

The Youngest Profession (1943, USA) – Friendly satire about screaming teenage autograph hunters. The movie stars, who here play themselves, are all very friendly, and don’t mind having long chats with fans and replying to their letters. Watched: 26 minutes.

Girl Crazy (1943, USA) – Mickey Rooney is such an obnoxious rich teenager that his father sends him away to a remote school. It doesn’t help, he’s still obnoxious. Watched: 14 minutes.

Immortal Sergeant (1943, USA) – American actors pretend to be English soldiers, and come off as neither. Watched: 6 minutes.

Titanic (1943, Germany) – The voyage of the Titanic illustrates the dangers of unrestrained capitalism. Watched 15 minutes, then fast-forwarded to see how it ends: The ship hits an ice-berg and sinks! Everybody behaves like animals, and the capitalist who is responsible for it all is acquitted by a British court. The director of this movie was hanged, but I think Goebbels overreacted.

The Constant Nymph (1943, USA) – Charles Boyer is a depressed composer. All the girls are wild about him. Watched: 11 minutes.

Why We Fight, Part 1 – Prelude to War / Part 2 – The Nazis Strike (1943, USA) – One of the greatest propaganda movies of all time. It presents a vision of a free, tolerant and compassionate world, where we all share responsibility for each other’s well-being, a world with America in the centre. It’s a vision that has shaped the world ever since, particularly whenever we realize our failure to live up to it. Watched it all, but I’ll skip the next 5(!) parts.

The Human Comedy (1943, USA) – Even the hobos are happy and friendly in this happy American town, where the war teaches a teenage boy Valuable Life Lessons. Watched: 7 minutes.

We Dive at Dawn (1943, UK) – A submarine crew, nice and dull chaps every one of them, prepares for shore leave. And .. I guess I feel asleep there for a moment. Watched: 7 minutes.

Heaven Can Wait (1943, USA) – Don Ameche tells his life story at the gates of Hell to convince Satan that he belongs there. Turns out he was just a moderately bad boy who enjoyed alcohol, women and life in general, and Hell doesn’t take those kind of people any more. Watched it all.

Yesterday at work I listened to Jethro Tull’s entire 70′s catalogue. I’m not actually a fan, it was just there on my hard drive, and I haven’t used it up yet as work music. By the end of the day, I had written a lot of code, and also picked out my two favorite Tull songs:

Münchhausen (1943, Germany) – Don’t let it be said that Nazi Germany couldn’t be frivolous, when Goebbels commanded them to. An immortal playboy has adventures all over Europe, some of which violate the laws of physics. Holds up well to the Hollywood swashbucklers of the time, except that it’s a bit unfocused. Ferdinand Marian, the evil Jew from Jud Süss, here plays an evil magician who loves power and wants to invade Poland. Huh. This is mostly pure fantasy, though. Watched it all.

The North Star (1943, USA) – A happy family lives in a happy Ukrainian village. It’s just like any American town, and there’s been no genocide or anything. But all is not well: the Nazis, inbetween stealing the blood of Polish children, are gathering forces near the Soviet border. Written by Lillian Hellman, a Stalin apologist, during that brief period in history when this was a big plus in Hollywood. Watched: 8 minutes.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943, USA) – The battle for Africa as a light adventure. A British soldier finds himself behind enemy lines, and pretends to be a German spy. He must discover Rommel’s secret plan for the conquest of Egypt. This is perfect. I love the opening scene: A tank is driving alone across the sand dunes, its crew lying dead against the controls. Watched it all.

Here’s a prediction: This whole thing will resolve itself nicely along partisan lines. Here’s how it will happen.

Step 1 – Upon learning that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Barack Obama, everybody has an honest first reaction. Reactions such as “is this a joke?”, “WTF?!”, and “uh .. why?”

Step 2 – Everybody looks at how everybody else reacted to the news. They notice that some people they hate had the same reaction they did.

Step 3 – This makes some people uncomfortable. This isn’t how the world is supposed to work. They start looking for some way to disagree with the people they hate.

Step 4 – A few pioneers find it in the they’re going too far excuse. As in: “Yes this was strange, but the people who are using this as part of some anti-Obama / anti-Jagland hate campaign are going too far.”

Step 5 – They move from there to “well maybe this kind of makes sense when you think about it”.

Step 6 – This sends the signal for everyone to align themselves into two familiar camps, ie those who think “the critics are going too far, those guys are assholes” vs those who think “the defenders are going too far, those guys are assholes“.

The first speck of gold – or possibly fool’s gold – to fall out of the dirt this year is Hungry Beast, on ABC in Australia.

It’s investigative journalism, satire, and half-serious opinions about half-serious issues. They try too hard to be stylish, but the first two episodes have been interesting and/or enjoyable, when it isn’t irritating and confusing.

The premise is to give 19 media newbies half an hour to “tell us something we don’t know”. The producer calls it “a show made by people who don’t watch TV for those who still do”.

The first episode jumps from interviewing the family of a soldier who has died in Afghanistan to a debate over whether pandas are an evolutionary dead end and should be allowed to go extinct. So .. that’s something you won’t see anywhere else.

They also play a wonderful practical joke on the Australian media, by tricking journalists into reporting a fake study from a fake research institute about how gullible Australians are. Here it is:

So will this work or devolve into self-parody? I hold both options open, and will keep watching to find out.